In times past, bird hunting was much easier than it is today. The team of hunter and dog would simply walk the fencerows between crop fields to flush out and hunt birds. However, it has increasingly become the practice of farmers to plant grass in their crop fields. Vast fields of tall grass make it difficult for the hunter and the dog to keep track of each other. When the hunting dog is still, such as when it is on point, finding the dog in tall grass can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
It is not much easier for the dog to find the hunter. The dog cannot see more than a few feet in tall grass. The dog's primary senses are hearing and scent, making it difficult for the dog to find a hunter trying to be quiet so as not to scare the birds. Moreover, dogs are pack animals and prefer to remain in contact with other members of their pack. The pack includes the hunter, who in fact takes the role of the alpha dog or dominant pack member. Being alone and cut off from their alpha dog makes an individual hunting dog uncomfortable, and distracts it from its task of spotting birds. Hunting in tall grass makes it all the more difficult for the dog to remain with the rest of the pack, especially when that pack includes a human.
Hunters have tried a number of possible solutions to this problem with to varying degrees of success. One attempted solution to the problem of keeping dogs near the hunter has been to equip the dogs with shock collars that provide a painful electric shock to the dog if the dog exceeds some desired distance from the hunter. The transmitter carried by the hunter is adapted to maintain contact with the collar and to administer an electric shock to the dog in response to receipt of a control signal from the hunter. The shock collar therefore operates upon the principle of punishment to train the dog to stay near its master. These collars suffer from the drawback of using punishment to extinguish certain specific unwanted behaviors by hurting the dog when it engages in those behaviors. The dog is not trained to stay near the master; rather it is trained to not travel away from the master under specific conditions. If conditions vary from those under which the dog was trained, the training becomes less effective and reliable. Further, the use of painful punishment is impractical while actually in the field hunting, since the dog is likely to react to the shocks by yelping or otherwise making noises which may prematurely scare and flush the birds. Moreover, using pain to train any animal can intimidate the animal to the point of ineffectiveness.
Another attempt at a solution is a beeper collar. The beeper collar is worn by the dog, and emits a periodic beeping noise to help the hunter find the dog. The known beeper collars suffer from several drawbacks. First, a beeping collar worn by a dog does nothing to help the dog to actively find its master. Also, the beeping noise can quickly become an annoyance to both the hunter and the dog. Further, the beeping noise may spook the game birds. Finally, extensive long-term use of beeping collars may damage a dog's sensitive hearing.
There is, therefore, a need for a device or system that both enables the hunter to find the dog and the dog to find its master that does not emit a beeping noise that would spook the game birds the hunter and dog are attempting to hunt. The present invention addresses this need.